Daughter of bigoted pitcher in '42' says movie unfair

Daughter of bigoted pitcher in '42' says movie unfair

Associated Press

JOPLIN, Mo. — The daughter of a pitcher portrayed in the new movie about famed baseball player Jackie Robinson says the movie unfairly characterizes her father as a racist.

In the recently released movie "42," Fritz Ostermueller purposely hits Robinson in the head with a fastball and then tells Robinson: "You don't belong here."

But Ostermueller's daughter, Sherrill Ostermueller-Duesterhaus tells The Joplin Globe that never happened. News accounts of the 1947 incident also show that Ostermueller actually threw a high inside pitch that caught Robinson on the wrist.

The scene in the movie about Robinson's rookie year with the Brooklyn Dodgers was meant to convey the racism that Robinson faced when he broke baseball's color barrier. But Duesterhaus, who lives in Joplin, says her father wasn't a bigot.

May 6, 2013 - 11:13am

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